Christmas Eve has arrived..

So far our 4 day weekend has been fun. We took Jesse's car to get fixed again.. I think it has a black cloud over it. We worked out this weekend, met friends for breakfast and drinks.
I received a free dinner for 2 in the mail for the restaurant in the casino right down the street. We also got 25 dollars in free play. The food was great!! We ate prime rib and lobster tails. I think we will be going back. The 25 dollars in free play went rather quickly but we had a good night. I have a picture of this enormous ginger bread house. The roof was made of Hershey bars.
Sorry for the poor quality picture but the camera phone isn't one of the best.Tonight is Christmas Eve and we will dine on Stone crab and Spinach dip. Our neighbors will be over for drinks and a few rounds of darts. Christmas day Jesse is making a brisket with vege's. I will make a sweet potato casserole. Maybe one day we will have family here for our holiday festivities.
Next week we will prepare for our camping trip. We are spending New Years at Koreshan State Park. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!!!

Jesse’s Turkey Vegetable Soup, near zero carb

Day 1, cook a 16-18 lbs turkey, around 4 hours at 325 F. 2 hours on one side, 2 on the other. (this method produces juicy white meat, go ahead and try it at Thanksgiving)

Store all pan drippings in a container, refrigerate overnight. Eat as much turkey as you can for the next 24 hours, keep all bones.

Day 2, gather ingredients:

NOTE: All ingredients are fresh, and soup stock is made from scratch.

½ bunch of fresh Basil

4 medium yellow (or sweet) onions

1 bunch of green onions

½ head of cauliflower

2 lbs of fresh green beans

2 hearts of celery (the leafy stuff in the middle most people toss out)

4 stalks of celery

All leftover turkey meat.(hopefully 3 lbs or so is left)

Take pan drippings from fridge, and scrape/throw away thick layer of fat from the top.(yes, this is a low fat meal as well - not just low carb)

Drop all turkey bones/carcass into 12 quart pot, along with drippings. Fill with water until all bones covered, probably 2/3 of the pot. Cover and turn up high to boil, then medium boil for 45 mins.

Meanwhile,

• Quarter and slice onions and pan fry in olive oil until very brown(and sweet and delicious), then set aside.

• Snap off ends and dice green beans, green onion, and all the turkey that is leftover from the 24 hour binge. (if there is none, then you may have overdone it….)

• Very finely dice celery, cauliflower, fresh basil.
  

• Once pot has boiled for 45 minutes, remove from heat and pull out/strain bones, saving every piece of meat for the soup. This can take some time, but it is the base of the entire soup.

• Bring pot to boil, add browned onions and green beans.

• After 10 more minutes of boiling, add celery, green onion, fresh basil and turkey.

• After 15 more minutes of boiling, add cauliflower, two teaspoons of salt, and two teaspoons of black pepper.

• Boil another 5 minutes, remove from heat and cool pot in sink of ice water (preferably)

ENJOY!

If you need boullion cubes, you added too much water. But go ahead and add them if needed. Freeze off a gallon so you don’t get sick of it after 4 days. Potatoes and carrots were reluctantly excluded from this recipe to keep it low carb, but if you want them, don’t add too many and dice them and add the carrot at the same time as the green beans, and the diced potatoes the same time as the green onion.

Don't skip the cauliflower if you don't normally like it, it really makes the soup good and consistant, and will not taste like cauliflower anyway. In fact, since there are so few ingredients, don't skip ANY OF THEM.

Christmas Season is back again

Yes you heard it right... All the drivers on the road are in a hurry to get their shopping done. More accidents are happening because every one is in a hurry to get nowhere. Maybe I'm a little bit cranky and not in the Christmas spirit at this moment but hopefully that will change.
I spent most of the week putting up Christmas decorations and getting things for Jesse's work party. We went to his party last night and had a great time. The food and drink were excellent and everyone danced all night. We took a few pictures before leaving so I will put one up for everyone.

Deep in the Caves..

Well we had ourselves a little road trip. Starting from Albuquerque and driving through Santa Rosa. In Santa Rosa there was a natural spring called Blue Hole. It wasn't that big but just as nice. On the road again and heading for Ft Sumner to see Billy the Kid's grave. His two friends were buried next him. I can't remember what their names were. After taking a few pictures and seeing the museum we made our way to Roswell. Jesse made me stop and take pictures of him walking down a deserted highway. I guess he was trying to be the star of highway to heaven. Roswell was ok... I guess I was expecting something different from the various museums and stores filled with alien T shirts and trinkets. We stayed long enough for a bathroom break and coffee. We then made our way to Carlsbad Caverns and the next morning went 70 something floors deep into the earth. That was so cool... It was cold in the dark caves. What a beautiful sight!! We did a tour, then walked the self tour which took an hour and a half. We scouted around the area and checked out the nature before heading home to Albuquerque. We rushed to get ready for the Majic Mystery tour at the college. The concert was great and they sounded just like the Beatles.

The next morning we took a drive down the Turquoise trail and stopped at our favorite mining town on the way. The shops were filled with local artists. We made our way through all of the shops before stopping for coffee. Finally that night we went to old town before flying out the next day.

Happy Halloween!!

Here's a picture for Joaquin and Karen. It wasn't the same without you guys here but I am posting this picture so you can feel like you were.

Awaiting winter..

The temperature is dropping. It's not enough to break out a jacket but better than summer. Not much went on last weekend. Capone went to the vet for a broken and infected nail. Unfortunately they had to pull it off. Poor puppy was walking around with a club foot for a while, but now he has been set free from the bandages.

This weekend we went downtown for an art and music festival. Once we got there we were disappointed by the turnout of vendors. I started scrap booking again on Sunday and got a jump start on my Christmas cards.
We have been watching so many movies since we switched to basic cable. Netflix has been really great. A few movie recommendations... King of Scotland, A Painted Veil, The Pianist and The Departed. I will keep you informed about others. Oh yeah!! Little Miss Sunshine was a little silly, but had some funny parts.
Jesse brought home a pumpkin so we carved it Saturday night. I am hoping to scare off the kids.. LOL

We love New York

There was never a shortage of things to do and see on our trip. Irene and Fred were so good to us. I loved meeting them and we will see them when they come to Florida in January. The view from their condo was amazing. We arrived late on Sat and walked at least 20 blocks before dinner. We saw Rockefeller Center, New York Library (the outside only), Grand Central Station and St Patricks Cathedral.Sun we spent at the Guggenheim, (they were doing major construction on most of the buildings) The Metropolitan Museum, Zabars, Lincoln Center (where Jesse was sitting and having a snack) and walked through Central Park to Strawberry Fields.
If it wasn't for Irene and Fred we wouldn't have gone to as many museums as we did..
Monday we went to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Wall St, Ground Zero, China town and Little Italy. There was a street festival down wall street for Columbus Day. Jesse managed to get footage. I will attach a video.

Tue we spent at the Museum of Natural History. Let me tell you we were getting very tired and our feet were killing us.. lolWe also went to the flat iron building, Times Square and Madison Square Gardensbefore going to see Chicago on Broadway.






Wed is when everything slowed down a little. We took a tour of the UN and had the chance to sit in on one of the meetings. It was China and Great Britain. We also went to the New York Library again to see the inside and Carnegie Deli where Jesse took a picture for Joaquin. We had dinner in Little Italy with Fred and Irene.Thursday it was off to the Jewish Museum and upper Central Park. We went back home for a rest and walked around town later that night.



Friday was the last day to run around and fit everything in.. We left early and went to the Museum of Modern Art. We also went to the Empire State Building and waited for 2 hours to get up to the top and see the view. I wouldn't recommend the trip up.... We finished our day with a little Zabars and back home..

Response to Joaquin's blog that he blocks comments on and takes the "blog" out of blogging

I totally disagree. We are just as successful on the War on Drugs as we have been on the War on Terrorism. Haven't you heard about all of the poppy fields in Afghanistan that Saddam personally cultivated? After Saddam bombed Oklahoma (yes, I know that was a while ago but he did it, I swear!) he sold a sh'load of weed to a bunch of hippies, I saw it for myself. Our next campaign, if you are interested, is going to be the "War on Prostitution". Even more so than the millions of dollars each city drops on their own Vice units. You might think to yourself, how can I pick a side? It doesn't effect me? Wrong!! You are either with us or against us!! We want more laws and agencies to support the existing laws and agencies to really crack down on BJs and possibly even straight sex encounters that did not come from a loving relationship, or at least toward the end of an expensive meal or a "connection" made .."it was like I have known him/her my whole life"... You can buy the $50 bottle of wine to intoxicate and damper the other person's morals, but $20 with no tax revenue to a "lady" who doesn't even have the dignity to giggle and flirt over two hours before-hand in disgraceful.
I think I have made my point, and lets get on board before this whole sex trade thing gets out of hand. It is a new phenomenon, just like the intoxicants trade, and we can stop it in every city and small town. Now go vote for one of the two major parties to make it happen!!!!

My sight seeing in South Africa continued..

Day 2 was full of more sight seeing and shopping. We saw several more water falls, among these were the Lisbon Falls, Horseshoe falls and Berlin Falls.In between Falls we had lunch at a pancake place that served salty and sweet pancakes.
Each of these sites took hours to get to between driving and hiking.This site is the Mac Mac pools which were also called pot holes. These holes in the ground were natural springs that people were swimming in... Too cold!!

We ended the second day equally exhausted. Our last day we woke at 3:30 and headed to Krugar National Park for our Safari. I won't speak much about the animals. I will just post as many pictures as possible for your enjoyment.Oh quickly I will just say that we stopped for lunch and sat under a tiki hut. I looked up and saw the Bats sleeping peacefully.














That's the end of the trip and I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Jesse and I are off this weekend for New York. We will be gone a week and hoping to see the whole city. We will share our pictures when we get back.